Ebola outbreak in DR Congo could escalate rapidly – WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo could escalate rapidly. The WHO cited attacks by armed groups, community resistance and the geographic spread of the disease. “We are now extremely concerned that several factors may be coming together over the next weeks and months to create a perfect storm,” WHO’s Head of Emergency Response Peter Salama told reporters in Geneva. The latest outbreak of the deadly disease has been focused in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which have been a tinder box of armed rebellion and ethnic killing since two civil wars in the late 1990s, Reuters reports.